Institutes aim for an urchin revival

CLARKE CANFIELD

Wednesday

Dec 28, 2011 at 2:00 AM

PORTLAND, Maine — A move is now under way to jumpstart the urchin industry, which has fallen on hard times and is just a skeleton of its former self.

PORTLAND, Maine — During the heyday, Maine urchin fishermen harvested more than 40 million pounds of the spiny creatures a year. A move is now under way to jumpstart the industry, which has fallen on hard times and is just a skeleton of its former self.

A panel made up of scientists, urchin harvesters and regulators has begun discussions on developing a fishery management plan that would look at how best to maximize the value of the fishery while also protecting the resource.

Nobody expects the industry to return to the days of the 1990s, when it employed thousands of people who harvested and processed the pincushion-looking animals, selling the golden roe to Japan, where it's a delicacy.

But developing a plan with goals, scientific criteria and a broad regulatory regime could result in a bigger fishery with more jobs, while protecting the urchin population down the road, said Larry Harris, a marine scientist at the University of New Hampshire who is chairman of a panel spearheading the plan. He'd like to see a plan developed by the end of spring and have it go into effect by fall.

"One would love to see greater production, but at the same time it's important how you do that so it's sustainable," Harris said.

Sea urchins used to be a pest in Maine's coastal waters, where the population multiplied during the 1970s and '80s, destroying kelp beds and clogging lobster traps.

But that all changed in the late 1980s when processors developed markets in Japan for the urchin roe, or uni. With a gold rush mentality, thousands of fishermen harvested the globular urchins from the ocean bottom by hand or by scooping them up in devices dragged behind their boats. Hundreds more people worked at processing plants along the Portland waterfront.

During the peak years in the mid-1990s, the harvest topped 30 million pounds year three years straight, with a peak of 42 million pounds. The value of the fishery exceeded $30 million, making it the No. 2 fishery in the state behind lobster.

But as the urchin population dwindled under heavy pressure, the catch fell sharply. In 2010, the harvest was just 2.6 million pounds, the smallest yield since 1987.

Earlier this year, a Department of Marine Resources advisory board known as the sea urchin zone council began exploring how best to develop a fishery management plan for urchins. A 90-page top-to-bottom review of the department recommended that it be restructured around a policy requiring "sustainable resource management based on management plans with clear objectives and goals."

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